If you click "Badges" overview in menu or you see some users' badges, you just see a very, very long list which is not very synoptical. Wouldn't it be much nicer to present them in hiearchy? For example:

Nice question -> Good question -> Great Question

Notable question -> Popular question

In general, that could lead not only to a tree, but to more general acyclic graph - because one badge may be subset of more badges, but also two badges might be easiest version of one badge.

3 Answers
3

This is one great idea. Although the present table is placed in alphabetical order, I feel that it does have its disadvantages, especially when it comes to groups, and categories, as Tomas has pointed out.

Putting them in groups, trees, and hierarchies would simplify matters a lot.

This would really cry out for a Tic-Tac-Toe badge for getting three in a row.
–
McCannotJul 25 '11 at 16:48

1

Well, this would be only possible if the hierarchy tree is simple, but in general each badge could have more "upgrade" badges than just one. And maybe the upgrade badges need not to follow the bronze-silver-gold line exactly (what if there is some bronze-silver-silver-gold or something like that?). Somebody should do the analysis first, i.e. build the complete hierarchy tree.
–
TomasAug 7 '11 at 18:03

I think that, in case this were to be modified, the user should be able to select the display. Similar to the list of answers ...

... that has four options to customize it, the badge display (which currently lists newest first I think) could look something like this:

But ...

I think the hierarchical display will not be as easy to implement as changing the order from newest to alphabetical would be. Plus, this kind of display will definetly make the badge list a lot longer. For example, if one has 3000+ badges like this person (to pick one arbitrarily :)), the list would get a lot longer since you'll never display more than three badges per "row".

Also, what would be the display behavior for badges that don't have three versions, like Autobiographer, Beta, Commentator, Cleanup, ...? Are they going to be listed on a single row for themselves, or rather en-bloc below the hierarchical display similar to the way things are right now? The former would prolong the display even more ...